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Thursday, 14 November 2013

“FRANCIS EFFECTS” IN THE AGE OF MORAL FREE FALL By Emmanuel Onwubiko

Catholic Church is unarguably the largest
Christian denominated church with a global membership of over one billion
people. In the last two decades, the church has witnessed torrents of reforms
initiated in quick succession by three Popes namely John Paul II; Benedict XVI
and the current Holy father Pope Francis.

Carol Josef Wojtyla best known as Pope John
Paul II was remarkable because of the fact that he made world history as the
first non-Italian Pope in over 400 years and this unprecedented step has
continued till date with the emergence of Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger known as
Pope Benedict XVI from Germany and Jorge Mario Bergoglio from Argentina who was
elected Supreme Pontiff on March 13th 2013 and he became the first Latin
American to be made a Pope in over 600 years.

He nevertheless has Italian roots since both
of his parents were Italian immigrants.

As stated earlier, the three Popes have
carved unique selling points for each of their legendary papacy even as the
current pope has already won accolades for his exemplary simple lifestyle and
critics and admirers alike have had no choice but to identify him with some
positive virtuous sparks which they gave the sobriquet of “Francis effects”.

I will return to these key points but first
let us examine in quick succession the moral standpoints and achievements of
each of the three Popes in this era that can best be described as “age of moral
free fall”.

Pope John Paul II who became pope in 1978 was
born on May 18th 1920 and joined the saints triumphant on April 2nd 2005 at the
ripe age of 84.

John Paul II is credited with achieving so
much in the area of speaking out for global peace and respect for the
fundamental human rights of humanity.

Historians who documented his legacies in the
website of www.bigraphy.com highlighted the following as key among his many legendary and Iconic
legacies.

“He
was a vocal advocate for human rights even as John Paul often spoke out about
suffering in the world”.

The
Vatican historians also stated the legacy of Pope John Paul 11 as follows; “He held
strong positions on many topics, including his opposition to capital
punishment. A charismatic figure, John Paul used his influence to bring about
political change and is credited with the fall of communism in his native
Poland. He was not without critics, however. Some have stated that he could be
harsh with those who disagreed with him and that he would not compromise his
hard-line stance on certain issues, such as contraception”.

Pope
Benedict XVI born at the Diocese of Passau in Germany on April 16th 1927 and
became the first pope in recorded contemporary history in over 600 years to
proceed on retirement, is also credited with several moral milestones.

Importantly,
Benedict XVI is known to be strongly against the evils of consumerism and
materialism afflicting the world and is known to have penned down several
masterpieces.

His many publications are spread out
over a number of years and these great thoughts most of which are original are
said by Vatican historians to constitute a point of reference for many people
especially for those interested in entering deeper into the study of theology.

In 1985 he published his
interview-book on the situation of the faith (The Ratzinger Report) and in 1996
"Salt of the Earth". On the occasion of his 70th birthday
the volume "At the School of Truth" was published, containing
articles by several authors on different aspects of his personality and
production. He remains one of the finest theologians the World has ever seen.

Of the three, Pope Francis has become
the most talked about living human person on the internet because of a number
of moral revolutionary steps he has adopted on assumption of the papacy to
wrestle the church from entrenched dominance of certain centrifugal and
centripetal forces.

Pope Francis is also a reformer who
has quickly moved against all Clergymen identified or suspected to be worldly
and corrupt. But the Francis effects are far from the Nigerian Church weighed
down by some of these forces of corruption and abuse of office by some clergy.

However, the usually critical secular
writers have also unleashed torrents of praises on Pope Francis for what they
identified as his conspicuous humility, kindness, willingness to engage with
critics and admirers alike.

These critics known for their strident
verbal attacks directed at the hierarchy of the church institution and
authority have however in recent times moderated their voices of criticism
because of the inspirational lifestyle of the current Pope.

Francis’s modus operandi (mode of
operation) and Modus Vivendi (mode of life) are simply amazing and delightful
so much so that critics have come up with a name for the impact he is making on
the church and society which they nicknamed the “Francis Effects”.

Peter Weber writing in The week of November 12th 2013 said that
Pope Francis is greatly loved and admired because of his apparent lack of
verbal inhibitions, and relaxed doctrinal orthodoxy which in his words make for
a big stylistic change from his two predecessors and their combined 25 years as
Pope.

Peter Weber listed some of the “Francis
effects” to include the fact that the Pope is filling back up the pews
especially in Europe, that Pope Francis is taking pruning shears to the Vatican
bureaucracy to sweep away all traces of corruption and abuse of office and that
Pope Francis began a revolution never seen before in the over two thousand
years church following his new practice of writing letters and making phone
calls to strangers and people in far places who have sent letters to the
Vatican.

Pope Francis’s crusade against
corruption has however sent out security alert in Italy following the
intelligence leaked to the media that the mafia is plotting to kill him for
daring to change the status quo of official corruption.

Such is the prize for fighting entrenched
corrupt practices but Pope Francis has remained focused, resolute and resilient
in the face of these emerging threats to his life and has vowed to proceed with
his anti-graft war, the type unknown in Vatican’s history.

Perhaps angered by the fact that “the
World has achieved brilliance without conscience and that ours is a world of
nuclear giants and ethical infants” apologies to Omar Bradley, Pope Francis is
determined to stamp his moral authority to seek to check the moral free fall
that is afflicting the globe.

But as crusaders for positive changes
have witnessed in times past, those reactionary forces whose “axis of evil” are
being systematically stripped naked by the overwhelming superior moral courage,
conviction and authority of Pope Francis will surely fight back.

The greedy war lords are indeed
seeking revenge against this new world moral leader-Pope Francis.

From the Guardian.com of Wednesday November 13th 2013, the Italian Chief
prosecutor is quoted to have warned that Pope Francis’s attempt to bring
transparency to Vatican is making mobsters agitated.

Nicola Gratteri said that Pope Francis
is dismantling centers of economic power in the Vatican and that his
anti-corruption battle has made him a target for Italy’s all powerful mafia
clan.

Nicola Gratteri, who has battled
Calabria’s shadowy ‘Ndrangheta mafia, said on Wednesday that Francis’s attempt
to bring transparency to the Vatican was making the white collar mobsters who
do business with corrupt prelates “nervous and agitated”.

He told the Italian daily II Fatto
Quotidiano: “Pope Francis is dismantling centres of economic power in the
Vatican.

“If the bosses could trip him up they
wouldn’t hesitate. I don’t know if organized criminals are in a position to do
something, but they are certainly thinking about it. They could be dangerous.”

Francis, who has called for “a poor
church”, has backed reform at the Vatican’s bank, which has been suspected for
years of being a channel for the laundering of mob profits. This week police
impounded a luxury hotel on Rome’s Janiculum hill-formerly a monastery-which
the ‘Ndrangheta allegedly purchased from a religious order.

In a fiery sermon on Monday, Francis
railed against corruption and quoted the bible’s advice that practitioners be
thrown into the sea with a millstone tied around their neck.

“The mafia that invests, that launders
money, that therefore has the real power, is the mafia which has got rich for
years from its connivance with the church,” said Gratteri. “These are the
people who are getting nervous.”

Pope Francis is not the first moral
leader who is fighting corruption that has come under considerable attack
because the Nigerian anti-graft history is rich with dare-devil accounts of how
certain good people in government positions in the past were almost
assassinated for their principled stand against corruption because as we all
know if you fight corruption, it will fight back so viciously.

Nuhu Ribadu, whose controversial exit
as chairman of the Economic and financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) in not too
distant time, narrowly escaped assassination on his way to Jos, Plateau State
for standing firmly against powerful corrupt government officials.

But as we have learnt from Pope
Francis, we cannot give up the struggle against corruption if we ever hope to
emancipate Nigerians from poverty and mass destitution caused by official
corruption.

The World Bank has just released a damaging
report showing that over 100 million Nigerians out of the estimated 150 million
populations live in destitution.

This is a huge challenge for the
current Nigerian government and my simple advice is that President Jonathan
should borrow a leaf from the “Francis Effects”, and ruthlessly deal with corrupt
officials who are having field day in the corridors of power.

HURIWA'S WORKING VISIT TO ICPC ON THE 27TH MARCH 2013

HUMAN RIGHTS WRITERS' ASSOCIATION OF NIGERIA; HURIWA, ON DECEMBER 12TH 2012 VISITED THE DIRECTOR GENERAL OF NATIONAL EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT AGENCY[NEMA] ALHAJI MOHAMMAD SANI-SIDI ON THE CELEBRATION OF WORLD HUMAN RIGHTS DAY TO CONFER ON HIM THE HUMAN RIGHTS PERSON OF THE YEAR 2012 BY THE ORGANIZATION. THE DG PROMISED TO TAKE DISASTER MANAGEMENT LESSONS TO ALL PARTS OF NIGERIA. HURIWA WAS LED BY ITS NATIONAL COORDINATOR COMRADE EMMANUEL ONWUBIKO.